In the aviation industry, aircraft inspections and maintenance are typically scheduled after a period of operation time or flight hours, or when predetermined flight cycles have been reached. The inspection and maintenance processes are comprehensive and ongoing. For example, certain aircraft components are replaced upon reaching a maximum allowable usage, while other parts are periodically checked for field failures or faulty performance. Airlines and airworthiness authorities often refer to scheduled inspections as A-check, B-check, C-check, or D-check, wherein A-checks and B-checks are considered to be lighter checks, and C-checks and D-checks are considered to be heavier checks. As illustrated in FIG. 1, at an airport gate, for example, airline crewmembers may conduct a ground inspection and assessment 102 of parked aircraft. Such ground assessment, also known as an airport ramp inspection, involves checks on airplane structure and system components for visible damages caused by aging, wear and tear, deterioration due to the environment, strikes by birds, lightening, or foreign objects debris, etc. The procedure is performed in accordance with flight crew operation manuals 104 including pilot operation handbooks, regulatory updates 106, crewmember knowledge 108, and other information provided by the aircraft manufacturer and operating airlines.
Typically, it is the responsibility of the airlines ground crew to make a decision 110 on whether the aircraft is airworthy before pushback for departure. In preparation for flight, items on a checklist, both interior and exterior, are inspected. Discovery of any safety issues, and correction or deferment of such issues, is essential for ensuring a safe flight. Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) adopted the operation concept of a minimum equipment list (MEL), flights are allowed with certain inoperative items, as long as such items are nonessential in flight. Thus, within the FAA MEL guidelines, airlines may defer repairs of certain nonessential equipment. For inoperative equipment found during inspection, a decision is made as to whether the aircraft is safe for departure 120, whether maintenance 112 is needed prior to departure, whether flight can be made under the limitations imposed by the FAA MEL rules regarding deferment 122, or whether the flight needs to be cancelled 114. The flight crew and maintenance engineering crews are notified of the status 116, 118, and all information is documented in log books 124 and maintenance records 126.
With the above-described inspection and maintenance processes, on-the-spot flight safety decisions heavily depend on the skills, knowledge, experience and level of training received by the individuals of the airline crewmembers who are working around the aircraft to perform ground inspections. During the inspections, airplane instrument, sensors, probes, brakes, pressure vents, engine blades, fluid level, cracks, and corrosions, etc., are subject to crewmembers' interpretations. Additionally, some inspections are conducted at night or at other times during poor visibility, which increases the likelihood that a safety issue could be misinterpreted or misjudged during inspection. Examples include obstructed probes by insect nests, worn-out brake pins, partially shut vents, twisted engine blades, fluid leaks, lightening strikes having caused holes, cracks, or dents on top of fuselage, corrosion of antennas, lost of fasteners, and color of the over pressure relief caps, etc. Inevitably, there have been reported incidents traced back to errors and improper judgment by humans.
In some newer and more advanced aircraft, the aircraft include onboard real-time health management systems, referred to as Airplane Health Management (AHM) systems, which enable fleet-wide monitoring of the aircraft while in flight. AHM systems give airlines additional capabilities to monitor onboard systems and components, thereby enabling efficient fleet operations for the airlines with optimized flight planning and flight management. For example, AHM systems aggregate the data, identify potential issues, update maintenance manuals, and provide service and repair related information supplied by aircraft manufacturer systems and engineering experts. AHM summary reports can be sent via to ground stations then routed to airline operation centers for processing. Data going through such channels can be costly to some airlines if the amount becomes huge and the speed of data transmissions can be an issue. As an alternative, AHM summary reports can also be stored on a recorder for later retrieval at the airport either wirelessly or manually.
With onboard and off-board broadband connectivity, large volumes of accumulated aviation service data are becoming available for airlines to assist fleet maintenance, airplane inspections, and repairs on the ground. Airline crewmembers may have access to this database through an internet infrastructure or cloud-based servers to assist their decision-making. Predictive analytics or other machine-assisted methods are capable of extracting true values from volumes of data. Accurate processing of such big data leads to confident decisions, and better decisions means greater operational efficiency and reduction of costs and risks for the airlines. With data analytics enhanced inspection and maintenance, airline crew are able to assess the situation in real time and make correct decisions on-the-spot, thereby enhancing the safety of the flying public, the crewmembers, and the airplanes.
One downside of the above-described AHM system is that it does not combine and integrate all relevant in-service maintenance data among an aircraft manufacturer's aircraft portfolios. Rather, airlines typically keep their fleet inspection results and maintenance data from each other. Unless major incidences occur that operators must report per FAA rules, aircraft maintenance data is only available on a voluntary basis. Due to geographical diversity and differences in culture, languages and data format, current maintenance records of inspections and repairs performed by worldwide fleet on the ground are not integrated with the aircraft manufacturer's AHM system including data collected in-flight. For non-English speaking countries, airlines maintenance logs are often recorded in foreign languages, which is also incompatible with an AHM system written in English. Thus, using the traditional methods, airlines take time, in some case up to a week, to make necessary actions.
Thus, it is desirable to have an improved system and method for integrating and analyzing the contents collected from ground maintenance and inspection with an onboard AHM system to improve accuracy with diagnosis of safety issues and timeliness of the appropriate responses to such issues.